


Machine Huntress

by Masterweaver



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game), RWBY
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:08:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21886441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterweaver/pseuds/Masterweaver
Summary: What makes a huntress?What makes a machine?And what happens when something that's both arrives?
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	1. Dawn Breaks

She was two seconds away from hitting the ground when she came to her senses--but that, after all, was what landing strategies were for. Her body went through the motions automatically, even as she assessed the situation--hands gripping rebar as it passed, letting her swing her legs forward and point the jets in her boots at the blasted earth, countering the force of gravity just enough that her crouched landing only jolted her hips out of alignment. She flinched at the damage assessment, pushing herself up to a full stand and carefully cricking her lower body into its proper position. Her eyes roved over the ruined cityscape around her, taking in the piles of debris and rusted skeletons of towers as tall as Beacon's.  
  
Hesitantly, she lifted two fingers to her ear. "This is Penny Polendina, to any personnel in range. Please respond."  
  
Nothing. Not even static.  
  
"Say again, this is Atlas Huntress Penny Polendina, to any person in range. Please respond."  
  
Again, her communicator provided not a hint of noise, leaving her alone with the unnaturally still air.  
  
"...Alright..."  
  
She turned around, looking back the direction she had come from, and frowned thoughtfully at the ruins of another structure. Tiny green fire came from the heels of her boots, propelling her up to the third floor and the gaping hole in the wall; she stepped into an open office carefully, walking through another hole to a large room filled with strangely intact computers and an odd, half-broken arch in the center. Her frown deepened as she examined the arch, drawing up an image from her memories... it was almost an exact match, aside from being broken. And, well, not being frozen over... though, given where they'd found the other arch, that wasn't really a surprise.  
  
After a moment of examining the strange device of metal and plastic, Penny turned to the computers lining a wall. Well, at least they seemed like computers--the kind built into buildings and airships, mounted into their location for purposes of integration. Certainly, as her gloved fingers brushed over them, she could see clearly mechanical components. A quick search revealed that most of them were unpowered, being little more than particularly fancy bricks... but one, with the most wires coming out of it, still had a few lights on. After a few minutes of futilely searching for a compatible port for her Scroll, Penny decided to trace the wires, following them through the room till she discovered a keyboard--one made of plastic instead of projected by hardlight.  
  
She tapped a few buttons curiously--and on the desk above, a rectangular shape flickered, light coming across it like a pale scroll. Penny lifted the keyboard up, looking from it to the screen, which... looked very strange to her eyes. The primary color was purple, instead of the friendly shade of blue Penny was used to in Atlas. Some of the file types were certainly odd.  
  
"At least the input seems familiar," she murmured to herself as she navigated through the data. "And... ah! Statement of purpose! Maybe I can find out what happened here..."  
  
With a few taps of the buttons, Penny opened the file she had found--and discovered it to be a video, to her surprise. A video of some man, in a uniform she didn't recognize, leaning back in a chair and smirking at the ceiling.  
  
"The thing about disaster is it brings out the best _and_ the worst in people," he said casually. "And the best always wins because people are more good than evil, but the worst still leaves a mark because the best is always concerned about rebuilding and not so much about looking after the worst. Everybody's forgotten about that second part, it seems to me. Well, maybe not everybody. And maybe not forgotten. They're all too busy working on the Big Project to really think about it, though."  
  
Penny balked when the man turned to look right at her--before calming herself down. "It's just a recording." There was something about his smile that unnerved her, something... familiar, in a way she didn't want to think about.  
  
"Now I agree the Big Project is our best bet, but people are underestimating the scale of this disaster. Even us up top, who know the truth, we're pushing past it, thinking if we do this..." He rolled his eyes. "And that's the point, they're pinning it all on one thing! All it takes is a single madman doing one incredibly stupid thing and bing baddaboom, all our work goes down the drain, everybody dies and nobody cares. And with what's happening outside, I just know somebody here is going to snap. That facility they're building out west will wind up being for nothing. No no nono no. NEVER put your eggs into one basket. That's what _this_ is about."  
  
He pulled out a scroll--or at least, what looked like a scroll to Penny's eyes, though there was quite enough different to make it clear that it wasn't operating on the same principles. "Behold, project Infinite Morning! There may or may not be a u in that second word. But what is project Infinite Morning, you may ask? Why, I'll tell you. It's--"  
  
And then the screen died.  
  
"...What?" Penny turned back to the computer seeing the lights on it going off one by one as the internal mechanisms whined down. "That... is inconvenient..."  
  
She stepped up to it, carefully feeling around for seams and prying off the casing to peer at... a collection of circuitry that utterly baffled her.  
  
Systematically, delicately, Penny took out component after mysterious component, laying them out on the ground as she tried to make sense of the chips and wires. There was some familiarity, here and there, but... so many of the transistors and small machines were beyond her. And absolutely none of them seemed to run on Dust, which was... well, it had a number of implications that she didn't like. Combining that with the archway itself, and the ruins around her...  
  
"...This is Penny Polendina, to anybody who can hear me. This is a prerecorded message I will be cycling through radio frequencies every five minutes. If you hear this, please respond."  
  
It was thankfully easy to rig her scroll to transmit the message regularly, letting her focus on other things... namely the components in front of her. For a moment, she debated taking what seemed to be the memory core with her. It would certainly be useful in determining what had happened and how she had ended up here, but... at the same time, looking at the sheer complexity of the chips and their connections to each other, she wasn't sure if she'd be able to access the information within again.  
  
But then again...  
  
With a firm nod, Penny took the memory core in her hands and stood up. She looked at the broken arch, carefully positioning herself in front of it; her blades sprung from her backpack and, with careful delicate maneuvers, carved a small message into the broken tiles.  
  
"'Penny Polendina, headed west from this location.' That... should be enough, I hope." She looked over her shoulder at the dormant arch, sighing. "...I hope... I'll come back as soon as I can, I promise."  
  
She marched back through the hole in the wall, flying down to ground level and taking a deep breath.  
  
Then, staring into the rising sun, Penny started her journey through a strange ruined land.


	2. Out of the Blue

"Penny Polendina, mission log, unknown location, day one, hour one. I have traveled a total of four point five two kilometers west of my arrival point in this place. My observations indicate that at some point it was populated by a group of unknown individuals with technological capabilities akin to modern Atlas, utilizing technologies that do not appear to be reliant on Dust. The entire society collapsed due to an unknown disaster an unknown period of time ago, although a recording I have found suggests they were aware of the disaster coming. There does not appear to be evidence of Grimm around. In fact, there is minimal evidence of life of any sort. Aside from the occasional husk of an automative vehicle, the road I am walking on appears to be the only sign that anything is here aside from rocks and the ruins I arrived in. It is quite unnerving, if I am honest."  
  
Penny considered her scroll for a moment.  
  
"...End log."  
  
She shut off the audio recorder with a sigh, restarting the radio call program and continuing her trek. It was strange to think that she might be the only thing alive in this place. On this world, even. If this was another world, and the evidence so far certainly pointed toward that. Although another world that was populated by humans--or at least formerly populated by humans--was something of an unlikely coincidence. Could this be another world crafted by the brother gods? Or perhaps... no, that was about as good a guess as she had at the moment.  
  
Her eyes drifted back over her shoulder, looking toward a structure that had vanished over the horizon. Perhaps she should have remained. It wasn't as though the others wouldn't try to get her back. But... at the same time, she had no idea how the arch had activated in the first place. And she'd only just managed to shove Ruby out of the way before being sucked into...  
  
It was hard, even now, for Penny to qualify what she had experienced. Especially since she'd felt each of her senses shut off in sequence as they were overwhelmed. The constant struggle to reboot them reminded her uncomfortably of the period of time after the Vytal festival when she had been--  
  
A shadow crossed over the road.  
  
Penny looked up, so surprised by the presence of... something interrupting her contemplation that she forgot, for a moment, to prepare herself for unexpected contact. And then, what the thing was made her stare in astonishment.  
  
It was... well, it was shaped like a bird, with wings and a beak and talons, and it was certainly large enough to mistake it for a Nevermore at first glance. But the tail was the wrong shape, the beak was hooked instead of long, there were no claws on the wings, and then there was the small matter of the whole thing being clearly and blatantly made of metal and wire.  
  
She watched it circle through the air, wide-eyed. Absently, almost without thinking, she pulled out her scroll and started recording the machine's motion.  
  
"Penny Polendina, mission log, addendum. I have encountered signs of... life? A large metal bird--not an airship, an actual bird made of metal, as the accompanying video shows. It's incredible..."  
  
The bird's path changed, its glowing eyes turning from blue to yellow as it started gliding toward her.  
  
"...and it has apparently noticed me _preparing for contact **end addendum!"**_  
  
Penny barely had time to stash her scroll away before the bird dove at her, eyes flashing red. A quick burst of her jetboots kept her from being caught in the impact--an impact that was electrified, if the blue sparks bursting around the strange metal bird were any indication. "Unknown machine, state your purpose!" she shouted. "We do not need to engage in--"  
  
The bird looked at her and emitted a horrifying shriek, something that was even parts hawk call and electric screeching.  
  
"--hostilities," Penny finished flatly. "Or perhaps we do."  
  
With a powerful flap of its silvery white wings, the great bird lunged after her, its beak missing by a meter as she darted sideways and let her blades unfurl from her backpack. The close fly-by was enough to give her a better view of the underside of the creature's wings-- the myriad plates that formed an illusion of massive feathers, the trio of strange jets attached to each, armored canisters of icy blue liquid connecting shoulder to neck. Even as she folded her blades to their ranged form, the jets on one wing burst to life as the other dipped, spinning the machine around rapidly; her eyes widened at the electrical maelstrom forming on the thing's chest and she just barely managed to blast herself out of the way of a ball of lightning.  
  
Penny countered with an array of beams that cut into the corded wire of the thing's limbs, leaving a gash that seemed to be a wound more painful than crippling, judging from the way the creature screeched. She flew up and over the creature as it flapped furiously, scoring lines into the silver metal with her beams--wide black scorch marks, for how effective they were. Whatever this bird was, it was tough, and she somehow doubted it would hold still long enough for her to combine her shots into a charged blast... which left the possibility of using her swords directly. Not an idea she much liked, but there wasn't any good cover in sight, so she couldn't disengage from this confrontation.  
  
The creature screamed in fury as she smashed into its neck, flapping to a near-vertical flight path and triggering all its jets at once. Penny grit her teeth when she felt her swords dragged in the wind, barely catching the metal phalanges on the creature's back armor as she fought to keep the cords coiled enough that they wouldn't snap out of her control. For all of fifteen seconds they rose, till suddenly the jets cut out--and in the slowing moments before gravity took over, she flipped her blades forward, digging underneath the plates armoring the neck canisters and wrapping around to sink under the chest-mounted lightning generator.  
  
That, apparently, was enough to catch the bird's attention. In the last second of hang time it twisted, turning its fall into a maddening spiral that tugged Penny off its back. The sudden force snapped the pair of blades digging into the shoulder canisters into open air--tearing the armor off with them, thankfully enough--and Penny reeled them back in as quickly as she could while pulling the rest of the cords taught. Her boots slammed into the sternum, leaving her standing inverted on the chest of a wildly spiraling giant metal bird; she glanced back just in time to dodge a snap from the thing's beak, and then another, dancing on the unstable stage while her mouth curled unknowingly into a grin.  
  
A light reflecting off the inner wing made her look back at the chest--and her eyes widened as she saw the lighting generator revving up again. She spun on one heel, kicking back the hooked beak and launching her pair of spare swords to score gashes in its glowing optics--the shrill cry of mechanical pain covering her own strained grunting as she focused on the blades and cords in front of her. For three long, intense seconds Penny strained to pull the lightning assemblage from the creature, measuring each minor snap of its connecting bolts and wires against the wild winds buffeting her ginger locks. Two seconds before they would hit the ground she triggered the jets in her boots, springing forward and taking the assemblage with her.  
  
The crackle of electricity set free preceded the sound of the massive bird smashing into the road. Penny twirled about as she skidded to a stop, her blades tossing the lightning generator aside and folding back to rifle form even as she braced herself against the asphalt. Jagged blue lines were sinking into the creature's wiring, but it was still struggling to flip itself upright--then small lines of green cut into the now-exposed blue canisters, and they exploded into a freezing fog that coated the metal about them. Penny tilted her head at that, bringing her blades forth into a circle and linking their beams; the creature managed to right itself and was a flap and a screech into a charge when a thick blast of green light drilled into its chest.  
  
It fell to the ground before her, optics fading, with a still-smoking crater in its body.  
  
Penny watched it for a moment or two, carefully, before standing up and furling her blades back to their rest. Hesitantly she took a step forward... then another. Her gloved hand reached out, running along the hooked beak as large as she was. Slowly, gently, she took out her scroll.  
  
"...Penny Polendina, mission log, addendum to addendum. The mechanical bird proved hostile and equipped with a ventral-mounted electric weapon, which it used in addition to a combination of known Nevermore tactics to dangerous effect. I was able to dispatch of it after some effort..."  
  
She trailed a finger down the gash in the creature's wires.  
  
"...but it proved... remarkably resilient. I am... I am unequipped to determine if this was due to its armor being resistant to my beam weaponry or..."  
  
Her eyes drifted to the still smoking dent in the thing's chest.  
  
"...or if... if this is a case of an artificial being with aura."  
  
There was a moment where Penny struggled to put her thoughts into words.  
  
"...It is likely the first option," she finally admitted, taking her hand off the scar she had left. "However, should I encounter such beings in the future, I will make an effort to monitor the possibility of aura and aura breaking more directly. I hope I do not have to engage in further hostilities." She opened her mouth, as if to say something else, but eventually shook her head. "End addendum."  
  
Penny put her scroll away, but didn't move for a few moments longer.  
  
Finally, hesitantly, she reached out, patting the metal bird's head. "That was a well-fought battle. If it had to be done, then you did it well."  
  
There was no visible reply from the bird.  
  
Penny pulled her hand back and, after one last lingering look, continued on down the ruined road.


	3. Long Trek

"Penny Polendina, mission log, unknown location, day one, hour fifteen. As stated in my two previous mission logs, I have encountered plant life. Previous examples include some form of lichens or moss and various forms of grass. However, as of thirteen minutes ago I discovered a bush, and there may be trees in the distance. I cannot be certain as the sun set roughly four hours ago. On a possibly related note, I have seen more of the quadrupedal machines and their bipedal escorts as plant life has grown more abundant. Fortunately, they seem preoccupied with their own tasks and are apparently not as aggressive as the mechanical bird. I have avoided engaging in further combat scenarios via tactical retreat when spotted, and their luminescent optics make them relatively easy to avoid at night--"  
  
A splash made Penny look down.  
  
"--and I have just encountered running water. This is an unexpected development, which hopefully--hold on." She backed out of the small stream, peering ahead. "I believe there is... something moving out there. Something large. I will approach it and attempt to avoid engaging in contact until I determine what it is. Hold for further observations. End log."  
  
Penny hopped the wide river with her jetboots before turning off the lights embedded in them, leaving her eyes lone circles of green glowing in the night. She kept herself low as she made her way toward the shadow in the distance, noticing how the light from the oddly intact moon reflected and gleamed off the moving shape. As she drew closer, she caught sight of glowing blue spots--the tell-tale sign of the machine optics, moving carefully around the surprisingly soft footsteps of the thing. Thankfully enough, they were the small bipedal machines that resembled nothing so much as a much more lithe version of a Creep, with the predictable patrols and surprisingly heavy stamping noise they made. It took only mild caution to avoid their glowing gaze as she approached the strange giant.  
  
And what a strange giant it was. A machine itself, obviously, but one almost as tall as the Atlesian Colossus--perhaps taller, and certainly much more graceful. Four feet, each large enough to cover her entirely, plodded along on long legs that moved like graceful towers. A quartet of spurs extended from what could be called the rear; the body swooped elegantly into a neck that made up half the creature's height, with more spurs at seeming random on its back and segmented armor protecting its front. The head itself was a great disk, with an array of antennae aligning the back curve and serving as the only break in the geometric outline.  
  
Her eyes climbed the height of the creature, and she couldn't help a small breath of awe. Even as the creature's feet passed in front of her, a mere meter away, she couldn't find it in herself to feel the same wariness she had with the other machines she encountered. Her hand reached for her scroll absently, and she opened up the recording program without really thinking.  
  
"Penny Polendina, mission log, addendum. This is another machine creature and it is... astounding. Twice as large as the mechanical bird, at least--it is another quadruped, but far different from the ones I have previously observed. I would say it is around twenty-five meters tall, though as it is in motion I cannot be certain. It seems to lack the optical arrays other machines on this world have displayed, instead having some sort of saucer--"  
  
An aggressive revving sound warned Penny of the two-legged metal beast that had noticed her in time for her to sidestep its leaping lunge. She saw the red glow in its eye, matched by similar shines rushing through the grass toward her, and for a moment she wondered if she would have to engage in combat--but already she had reactivated her jetboots, shooting into the air and hovering above the set of strange watchers. They circled underneath her, eyeing her carefully in the moonlight, but none of them made another move to attack.  
  
Penny glanced at the scroll in her hand. "Ah! Apologies. I was not keeping alert and was surprised by one of the small bipedal machines. From observation, I can confirm they are capable of some form of communication and coordination, as the others in the area joined the one that noticed me and they are now watching me as they, no doubt, wait for my jets to wind down. Fortunately, they do not seem to be able to assail me from outside melee range." She glanced over her shoulder at the massive form still striding along placidly. "The large quadruped with the disk-shaped head does not seem to be bothered by my presence. In fact, it is not reacting to the altercation at all. Curious."  
  
A burst of power coursed through her jetboots, raising her alongside the creature's neck till she was hovering next to the edge of its head. "Intriguing... at this angle I can see a myriad of cameras and radar systems built into the circumference of the large machine's head. It appears this thing was designed as a mobile observation tower, perhaps able to transmit its data to other machines in the vicinity, maybe even receive data and communicate it across large groups. It may explain why the bipedal machines are guarding it; a hub of communication is..."  
  
Penny's eyes dropped for a moment.  
  
"...is... an important part of any infrastructure or organization."  
  
She stared at the moon in the sky, unbroken and with visible craters in its surface. It was nothing like the moon of Remnant, and yet... somehow, it felt like the most familiar part of this strange world.  
  
A system alert caught Penny's attention, and she inhaled sharply when she saw the gauge of her jetboots dropping. With but a moment's hesitation, she glided forward, landing atop the disc of the giant. "I am now standing on the creature... on the machine's head as I wait for my thrusters to recharge. It has yet to give any indication of noticing me. The head... appears to be rocking smoothly, in time with the machine's gait." She peered over the edge of the head carefully. "The smaller bipedal machines have returned to a neutral disposition and are continuing their patrols."  
  
She glanced up at the moon again for a moment before, carefully, making her way toward the center of the disk and sitting down.  
  
"I have conducted a long way in a single day and, honestly, I feel a need to rest. If this machine is as crucial as I believe it to be, it should not be assaulted during the night. I believe I will shut off here, and continue my journey tomorrow. End addendum."  
  
Penny shut off her scroll and put it away, carefully laying down on the silvery white metal. Her hand traced a ringed grove at the center of the head, and she allowed herself a bemused smile. "What are you thinking about? Can you think at all?"  
  
The only reply was the dull hum of servos and motors as the creature continued walking.  
  
With a sigh, Penny turned to take one last look at the strange stars above. Then her eyes shut, and her mind let go to wander down foggy paths of memories, hopes, and fears.


	4. Initial Contact

"Penny Polendina, mission log, unknown location, day three, hour seven. Still walking. Still avoiding machines. Still noting the correlation between the increasing level of plant and animal life and increasing number and variety of machines. Still wishing I had been able to pet that rabbit from two logs ago. My attempts to communicate with the machines have been continual failures, even with my scroll radio. I have yet to encounter any civilization or remains aside from the machines, rusting hulks of automobiles, and the ruins I arrived in--wait."  
  
A few dozen meters away, Penny saw one of the small bipedal machines turn toward a patch of tall grass, its single eye going yellow.  
  
"It would appear that something has caught the attention of a nearby machine. Perhaps this behavior might--"  
  
A figure burst out of the grass and plunged a basic metal-tipped wooden spear between the gaps of the machine's shoulder armor--with a sparky jolt, the eye stopped glowing and the machine fell to the ground.  
  
It all happened so quickly that Penny had to take a few seconds to process it, by which time the figure had pulled various components from the downed machine and stuffed them into a pack and slunk back into the red-tipped plants.  
  
"...I have visual confirmation of what appears to be a human. I cannot identify any faunus traits at this distance. The individual is armed, but from their actions their weaponry is meant solely to hunt machines for parts. I will assume they are not aggressive and attempt to initiate contact. Further details will be recorded in next log entry. End log."  
  
Penny put her scroll away, approaching the patch of tall grass with perhaps less caution than she should. True, whoever this was could be hostile--or even just rude--but after two and a third days alone she couldn't help but feel an eager relief. Hopefully they wouldn't react poorly to her interrupting their hunt...  
  
...and that was an odd thing, wasn't it? Hunting machines. Were the robots their only source of technological devices? Or... was there something about the situation she was missing?  
  
Questions that could be asked later, perhaps. For now, she simply strode toward the rustle in the grass, keeping her hands out and up in as nonthreatening a manner as she could. "Salutations!"  
  
A man emerged from the grass with a start, clad in hides and feathers and wood necklaces and... machine cables, oddly enough. He briefly pointed a spear at her before blinking and pulling it back. "Oh. Hello... stranger."  
  
Penny's smile faltered for a moment, but she brought it back with some effort. "I apologize if I am interuptting anything important," she said politely, carefully noting the blue streaks of paint on his right cheekbone and bridge of his brow. "It is just that you are the first person I have seen in a while, and I would very much like to know where I am."  
  
The man frowned at her for a moment, scratching his black beard. "You're in the Sacred Land of the Nora. The easternmost reaches, actually."  
  
"I'm afraid I am unfamiliar with the Nora."  
  
"...You don't know about the Nora?"  
  
"I have a friend whose name is Nora," Penny replied. "I do not think she is the same Nora you are talking about though. It is probably a coincidence."  
  
"Probably..." the man agreed. "Still, for a Carja to be so far east, without knowing about us is strange."  
  
"Carja?"  
  
The man blinked, peering at her carefully. "...You're not Carja?"  
  
"I do not believe so," Penny agreed. "But then again, I do not know what Carja is."  
  
"I'm sorry, from your clothes I thought..." The man looked at her again. "What tribe _are_ you from?"  
  
"I..." Penny considered for a moment. "I would say I am from the Kingdom of Atlas, but things are rather more complicated at the moment."  
  
"I've never heard of Atlas," the man mused.  
  
"I have never heard of the Nora or the Carja before today," Penny pointed out. "I believe I am rather far from home."  
  
"You would have to be..." the man agreed. "Er... are you going to keep holding up your hands like that while we're talking?"  
  
Penny looked at her hands for a moment before lowering them. "I did not wish to appear threatening."  
  
The man hummed in amusement. "You don't look quite as dangerous as you think, stranger."  
  
"Thank you!" Penny beamed. "It can be difficult to socialize when people are frightened of me."  
  
"...I guess it would be."  
  
Penny nodded--and then gasped. "Oh! I have not introduced myself! Salutations!" She saluted sharply. "My name is Penny Polendina!"  
  
"Oh. Uh... I'm Ferl."  
  
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ferl!"  
  
"I guess it must be? If you were travelling alone for.... how long?"  
  
"Approximately two days, seven hours, and nine minutes prior to locating you!"  
  
Ferl stared at her for a moment.  
  
Penny smiled politely.  
  
"Are your people all such compulsive timekeepers?"  
  
"The Atlas military prides itself on being efficient and protecting its citizens!" Penny replied brightly. Her smile faded for a moment. "Although we... may not have been succeeding at that, recently."  
  
"Military?" Ferl looked her over again. "You're a warrior?"  
  
"Affirmative! I am an Atlesian Huntress Specialist, Class A, Sargent Rank!"  
  
"A huntress?" Ferl chuckled. "Well, I'm a bit of a hunter myself, if you hadn't noticed."  
  
"Yes, I saw you dispatch the mechanical creature," Penny agreed. She looked at the fallen robot, clearing her throat. "What do you call them?"  
  
"Well, the tribes around here call them watchers. They tell the other machines if they see anything, you see." Ferl tilted his head. "You must come from pretty far away, if you call them something different."  
  
"I encountered them for the first time two days ago," Penny admitted.  
  
"The first--? Watchers are the most common kind of machine!" Ferl sputtered. "And you've never seen one before?"  
  
"Not before two days ago."  
  
Ferl stared at her for a long few moments. "You really are from a distant land, aren't you?"  
  
"I am, yes."  
  
"By All-mother..."  
  
Penny managed a small shrug. "I did discover something of interest when... when I arrived. Do you know any experts on technology?"  
  
Ferl shook his head softly. "We Nora prefer to use what the All-Mother gave us in this land, to avoid the mistakes of the Old Ones. I don't think you'd get much help from us... unless..."  
  
"Unless...?"  
  
"Aloy... _might_ be able to help you," Ferl admitted. "But I have to warn you, she can be difficult."


End file.
